Applegreen has been ordered to pay €18,750 to a veteran manager it decided had “knowingly traded in unsafe food” after it had to shut down a deli at an undisclosed location, with a tribunal finding the complainant “was not fully to blame” for a lack of staffing.The employee, Rajan Praju, spent 21 years working for the filling station chain – and had been a site director for eight years when he was dismissed in October 2024. His complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Petrogas Group Ltd, trading as Applegreen, has been upheld by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in a decision published on Tuesday.The tribunal was told a company audit of Mr Praju’s site uncovered “33 non-conformances in the deli area” in July 2024. A company disciplinary probe followed and concluded he had “knowingly traded in unsafe food”A regional manager who decided to suspend Mr Praju said in evidence to the WRC that there was “a real danger to public health”. David McRedmond: ‘O’Connell Street needs high density housing’ Listen | 50:36The tribunal noted the company’s food safety manager had testified to “a long list of issues which gave serious concern” and that sections of the site “had to close due to unsafe and unclean areas”. Another regional manager, who was responsible for a disciplinary process, told the tribunal Mr Praju had failed to maintain standards to the extent that it was “gross negligence” and “gross misconduct”. Mr Praju’s case was that he was subject to “hostility” after a new regional manager took over in April 2024. His barrister, Heather McKenna Furlong, submitted that Mr Praju had been left with “difficulties” fulfilling his duties because of shortcomings in staffing and resourcing. The complainant had been required to dismiss his assistant manager in June 2024 on the basis of gross misconduct, and the position was never refilled. The site’s food manager was also off on annual leave on the day of the audit, it was further submitted. Counsel submitted that her client spent the whole weekend of 12 July working on the site to attempt to rectify the matters raised. Mr Praju was ultimately given a final written warning, accompanied by disciplinary sanctions requiring him to take a demotion from site manager to store manager, and to relocate to another workplace, the tribunal heard. Mr Praju’s legal team argued that the demotion required him to go to work in a different county, and was “entirely untenable”. Their client’s past track record in audits was “not acknowledged” in the disciplinary outcome letter and the firm “did not engage” with Mr Praju’s argument that matters beyond his control contributed to the audit failings, it was submitted. It was in those circumstances that Mr Praju ceased engaging with his employer, it was submitted. The company ultimately terminated Mr Praju’s job at the end of October 2024. Adjudicator Gaye Cunningham wrote in her decision that the evidence produced in the audit was “damning in a serious way” and that Mr Praju “contributed somewhat” to his difficulties “by blaming others and being unable to accept responsibility for the shortcomings”.However, she noted a conflict in evidence about who was responsible for filling staffing gaps and ruled that Mr Praju “was not fully to blame” for the lack of an assistant manager to support him.The demotion and the move to a site over 66 kilometres away was “harsh” in view of Mr Praju’s long service. “Some other penalty, such as a written warning and intensive retraining, would have been more appropriate,” Ms Cunningham wrote. Ruling that the complainant was unfairly dismissed, she awarded him €18,750 for loss of earnings and benefits.